Unlikely Friends at Animal Rescue

Oh my! At Noah’s Ark, a wild animal rescue center in Georgia, Baloo the black bear, Leo the lion and Shere Kahn the Bengal tiger are unlikely friends. The three, who were rescued from drug dealers 12 years ago when they were cubs, spend their days together in a small pen, where they cuddle and play ball. “It’s kind of unusual because black bears and tigers would be solitary as adults,” Rebecca Snyder, a curator of animals at Atlanta’s zoo, told ABC News. Trainers worried for years that the three would fight, but they’ve never seen that happen. They only acted out when their keepers tried to separate them. “They live together and they don’t see their differences,” said Allison Hedgecoth of Noah’s Ark. — Watch it at ABC News

Dog Helps Nurse Kittens

In another sweet story of interspecies harmony, a Tennessee dog, Chloe, is pitching in with the nursing duties for Mama Cat and her litter of kittens. Chloe, whose maternal instinct is still in full swing after she had healthy puppies last summer, stepped right in to nuture the new little ones. “Her and the mommy cat come in and they take turns,” said their owner Rebecca Thomas. For now, they seem like one big, happy family. — Watch it at USA Today

Iverhart Heartworm Medication Recalled

Virbac is recalling six lots of its Iverhart Plus Flavored Chewables due to a failure to meet stability specifications. The heartworm preventatives met the specifications when they were released to distributors, but testing showed that the potency of the ivermectin in the chewables failed to last for the life of the product. The product may not fully protect dogs in the upper third of each weight range. — See the recalled lot numbers at Pet MD

Three Great Horned owlets were rescued after a wind storm in San Francisco.

Owlets Survive 3-Story Fall

Three 4-week-old baby Great Horned owls were rescued by volunteers after 30-mph wind gusts in San Francisco sent them plunging to the ground from their nest in a eucalyptus tree. “The fall they took was pretty tremendous,” said Rebecca Dmytryk, president and CEO of Wildlife Emergency Services. Thankfully, the little ones seemed to be doing just fine. Dmytryk’s group constructed a replacement nest using a laundry basket, and secured it to a cottonwood tree, which they said was a more suitable nesting place. The owlets were then brought to their new home, one by one. — Watch it at CNN

Man Asks Treasury to Replace $500 His Dog Ate

Wayne Klinkel and his wife stopped for dinner on their way from Montana to visit their daughter in Denver at Christmas time, and left their 12-year-old Golden Retriever, Sundance, in the car. Inside a cubbyhole in the car were five $100 bills, and a $1 bill. When they came back, they found the $1 bill and half of a $100 bill on the seat, and knew immediately that Sundance had helped himself to an expensive snack. For days afterward, Klinkel followed the dog around, picking portions of the bills out of the dog’s waste. He then cleaned it thoroughly and tried to piece the bills back together. After his local bank wouldn’t replace the bills, Klinkel has sent them off to the Treasury Department along with a letter explaining what happened, and is hoping to get a $500 check in the mail. “Guess we’ll just have to wait and see what happens,” he said. — See photos at Montana’s Independent Record